FW: Public Safety Berkeley District 1: Action Item for City Council (second attempt)

[Charis Kaskiris]

Dear Councilmember Maio,

 

It’s been 11 days and I have not received a response from you or your staff. As I mentioned in my original e-mail my concern is that  City Council inaction will enable the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) and in turn Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) to distort the tax base of the City of Berkeley and create a differential tax incidence on your district. More disturbing to me is the lack of any form of analysis, data collection, or evaluation criteria of either locating an Adult School in a highly residential area or locating juveniles expelled for criminal activities (guns, theft, assault, robbery) inside an Adult School (Berkeley Adult School – BAS) and combining it with juveniles on independent study. Even after 3 months of intense communication between citizens, the BUSD and ACOE and you (mostly one-way with the latter two) we have yet to see a written proposal/plan of what is to be implemented at BAS. It raises the question whether this plan has even anything to do with academics but rather a way for BUSD to reduce the criticism regarding their track record with crime on the two Berkeley high schools and serve as a “jail school” – a holding pen for juvenile delinquents – until BUSD is no longer mandated to entertain them.

 

CRIME

The biggest problem Berkeley as a City faces is crime; especially in your district. Yet after 3 months we have seen nothing from your office regarding the issue. How can you knowingly allow a local government entity to push crime into your own district?

 

The data on property crime in Berkeley is overwhelming:

We have 2.5x the property crime rate than both the US and California.

Source: http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/berkeley/crime/

 

We have more property crimes than Oakland.

Source: http://www.bestplaces.net/crime/?city1=50606000&city2=50653000 [FBI data]

It is highly appropriate for the City Council to assess whether new programs where tax-payer money that an economic impact analysis is performed before and an impact analysis is required post-program to assess whether its objectives have been achieved.

 

Impact of BAS on its neighbors

I took a quick look at crime data within 3 blocks centered BAS for the first 4 years after the BAS was located in our neighborhood (data available is 2005 through 2008). The first years is usually a better indicator of the direct impact rather longer term where other treatments (policing, etc. come into play). It is also a time period BEFORE the financial meltdown hence not a causal . This is reported crime to the Berkeley Police which is the source of the data. The BAS was located on San Pablo at the end of 2004. The expectation that GED students started trickling in 2006 as 2005 the school has limited classes. A first view at the data:

 

 

Category	2005	2006	2007	2008
Theft	165	145	139	152
Auto Burglary	115	134	138	179
Stolen Auto	80	80	84	83
Burglary	56	61	70	64
Vandalism	63	43	75	77
Alcohol violations	33	61	49	59
Robbery	0	30	31	29
Narcotics violations	0	34	32	30
No category	38	0	0	0
Aggravated Assault	0	14	1	0
Arson	0	0	0	8

 

Between 2005 and 2006 the total number of crimes went up by 9% between 2008 and 2007 went up by 3%. Within 3 years of locating the school here total number of crimes went up by 24% (I am excluding disturbances that were under-reported in 2005). In following the economic studies I have provided the BAS has cost our neighborhood already in the order of tens of millions in property value losses.

 

To my knowledge after 6 years of running BAS the BUSD has not performed an assessment on whether the program is serving the community it is supposed to, what is the cost transferred to the neighbors from having the school here (I estimate the financial damage that the BUSD has imposed on our neighborhood is in the tens of millions). In the experience (not perception) of many neighbors, especially the ones next to BAS, their life has forever changed; there are even neighbors already contemplating MOVING out of the neighborhood. Where is their voice in government?

 

While the state is contemplating giving resources and responsibility to local governments it is my belief that being responsive, proactive, and evidence-based goes a long way in earning tax-payer trust. It is also a way to remove layers of redundancy and a hindrance to fraud.

 

I am patiently awaiting for your response and actions.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Charis Kaskiris

 

From: Charis Kaskiris [mailto:cha...@kaskiris.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 1:15 AM
To: 'lm...@ci.berkeley.ca.us'
Cc: 'bas-acc...@googlegroups.com'; 'cha...@kaskiris.com'
Subject: Public Safety in District 1: Action Item for City Council

 

Dear Councilmember Maio,

 

My name is Charis Kaskiris and I am a resident, homeowner, and landlord in your district. I reside on Francisco Street between Chestnut and West Streets. I am contacting you with regards to BUSD proposed Community School classroom (expelled-student-holding pen or “jail school” as some administrator has called it) on the Berkeley Adult School. In particular I want to demonstrate its impact on neighborhood public safety, property values, and in turn disproportionate impact on the City’s tax-base.

 

Expulsion from school is never based on academic misconduct; it is always based on criminal activity/safety endangerment grounds. BUSD liberal standards on safety have reserved expulsion as punishment for criminal activity (firearm possession, drug possession, assault, theft). My prior experience working on cases of juveniles incarcerated in maximum security prisons in Michigan always had a common theme: they all started with crimes committed on high school premises by expelled students.

It is my belief that this is not an academic issue but rather a public safety issue which needs to be addressed by the City Council and not the BUSD which lacks authority and competency in making decisions that directly impact that safety of Berkeley residents.

Property Values Impact

There is an extensive economic literature on crime rates and impact on property values. Naroff et al. (1980) found that a 1.0 percent decrease in crime rates increased housing values by almost 1.7 percent. It is conceivable that a 1.0% increase in crime rate will decrease housing values by 1.7%. Combining the loss of value for all residences within ½ a mile of the Berkeley Adult School with a median price of $724,100 (as per 2009 Census) for about 500 homes (as per Zillow) then the impact of the potential increase in crime is over 6 million dollars. Note that for the rate of crime to go up by 1% it will require just a few additional crimes to be contacted within a 180 day period.

 

Why would the rate go up by at least 1%?

·         Because those are just a few more crimes that statistics from crime data around Berkeley High Schools demonstrate that they are highly feasible

·         Because the BUSD has been underreporting criminal activity for many years and is already a target of litigation for precisely that matter

·         Because the BAS is also underreporting incidents which required police action on their premises (they only claimed 50% of incidents that the Berkeley Police has provided us)

 

The $6million assessment does not include additional costs to the community:

·         Increased home-owner insurance (burglaries)

·         Increased car insurance (from car thefts, braking into cars, etc.)

·         Increased costs of safety improvements to local properties (alarm systems, fences)

·         Decreased rents for landlords as the neighborhood becomes less desirable

·         Negative impact of local business patronage due to fear of assaults/robberies (see chart below)

 

Crime Data around Berkeley Schools:

Looking at current crime data for the last 180 days at a radius of ¼ mile centered at the Berkeley Adult School, Berkeley HS, and Berkeley Alt HS:

Based crime tracker of the Berkeley Police (http://209.232.44.42/cvc/) and older data (http://berkeleyca.crimelog.org/zipcode).

 

		Adult School			Adult School		Berkeley High		Berkeley Alt HS
	Offense	last 180 days 0.5 miles			last 180 days 0.25 miles		last 180 days 0.25 miles		last 180 days 0.25 miles
Assault/Battery Felony			5	2		4		3
Assault/Battery Misdemeanor			20	3		40		8
Burglary Auto			76	21		30		23
Burglary Commercial			12	3		10		6
Burglary Residential			23	8		18		19
Disturbance			29	10		31		14
Domestic Violence			19	8		11		8
Narcotics Violation			31	12		23		6
Robbery			9	0		29		10
Sexual Assault Felony			1	1		4		0
Sexual Assault Misdemeanor			0	0		3		1
Sexual Assault on Juvenile			0	0		1		0
Theft Felony (over $950)			19	9		45		10
Theft from Auto			28	10		6		6
Theft Misdemeanor (under $950)			45	9		136		27
Vandalism			43	14		39		25
Vehicle Stolen			34	13		18		6
TOTAL			394	123		448		172

 

The public safety situation around Berkeley High is dire to the local businesses, homes, and foot traffic. I can cite numerous articles delineating crimes committed against the neighborhood around the Berkeley High School. Most crime is opportunistic and is perpetrated where criminals or people with propensity for criminal activity are. Do not locate this people in my neighborhood. The Berkeley Adult School already have ex-convicts on it that you have allowed to come into our neighborhood by not resisting the Adult School in the first place.

 

The neighborhoods between Sacramento and San Pablo between Cedar and Hearst are neighborhoods that are recovering from high crime rates in the 1990s. Bringing juveniles in near proximity to an area which has barely recovered from high crime rate is a slap in the face of homeowners and landlords who have extended a lot of effort and financial resources to turn the neighborhoods around. As a matter of public policy it is best to prevent a loss in property values as they are the basis for property tax revenues both for the City of Berkeley and the BUSD. Because there is such a marked discount on housing located in crime areas, Lynch and Rasmussen (2001) suggest that tax dollars would best be spent in preventing neighborhoods from "crossing the high crime threshold" and reducing the size of the local tax base. Locating high-risk youth in a neighborhood that barely became a lower crime area is just bad public policy.

 

City Council needs to Block the BUSD

As the BUSD has no authority of imposing tax burden on Berkeley residents. Transferring the public safety mess they have created around Berkeley High School to the Berkeley Adult School is effectively tax transference from another district to our district!

 

I strongly urge you to take proactive action through the City Council put a stop to their proposal of locating a Community School on the Berkeley Adult School and that the City Council forces the BUSD and the ACOE to generate impartial public safety analysis and property-value impact on the neighborhood of locating a Community School (comprised of expelled students, returning truants, juveniles who have demonstrated propensity for criminal activity) in the heart of a family-oriented neighborhood BEFORE such an action is taken. A program like this one has NEVER been implemented by ACOE within a densely populated neighborhood of families. In my assessment I have identified the risks and financial impact and I consider that the City Council, BUSD, and ACOE have been informed.

 

Keep the Community School away from our neighborhood.

 

I am awaiting for your actions and response.

 

Regards,

 

 

Charis Kaskiris

 

REFERENCES:

Naroff, Joel L., and Daryl A. Hellman. "Estimates of the Impact of Crime on Property Values." Growth and Change, 22, 24-30, October 1980.

Lynch, Allen K., and David W. Rasmussen. "Measuring the Impact of Crime on House Price?' Applied Economics, 33, 1981-1989, December 2001.